Google Forms has rolled out some new features along with a brand new look. Watch the video for a step-by-step tutorial on the new options for your classroom.
Some highlights include:
Response summaries
Adding videos and images to questions
A cleaner looking dashboard
As always, please see the library team if you would like assistance with this or any other technology tool in your classrooms. We are here to help! Have a great day :-)
-Your Friendly Librarians
Friday, January 8, 2016
Triventy: A Quiz Game Tool that allows Collaboration
If you like using Kahoot to review information, Triventy is a similar tool that adds an element of collaboration. Both Kahoot and Triventy are free tools where you can create fun quiz games to play with your classes. The advantage of Triventy is that you can have students collaborate to create quiz questions. You can invite students to add questions to your quiz via Gmail. Once the invitees create an account and follow your link, they can add questions to your quiz. You could assign groups of students to different areas of content and they could create review questions for your quiz over that material. In this way, Triventy offers students an opportunity to be more involved in reviewing the information and take more ownership in the review. When the "invitees" (your students) are adding questions, they do not see the questions from the other invitees. That way, the questions from the other students remain hidden until you actually play the quiz game.
Want to give your students a grade for their quiz questions? Every time a question is displayed in the quiz game, the name of the person who created the question will be shown on the screen. Therefore, you have some accountability in who has created each question. Of course, as the creator/administrator of the quiz game, you always have access to see, edit and delete all quiz questions in advance of playing the game so you can screen them for content and appropriateness. For more information about how to use Triventy, see the video below or see us in the library.
Using the Research Tool in Google Slides and Docs to Find Pictures!
This tool is great for presentations! Students can add pictures to their Slides and cite them with either a link or paste the link into PaperPile for a MLA citation.
Open the Research Tool
Select Images
Type in your search terms
Drag the pictures into your Slides/Doc
If you are okay with just a link to the picture source, you can stop here. For a MLA citation try the PaperPile Add-On!
Tuesday, December 15, 2015
EDpuzzle + Google Classroom = Awesome!
I usually post on Fridays, but this week I had to do a mid-week post because I am SO EXCITED that EDpuzzle is now integrated with Google Classroom. EDpuzzle is that great tool I wrote about earlier this fall that allows teachers to create interactive videos for their classes. Now you can post video assignments in your Google Classroom right from EDpuzzle. This makes everyone's life easier, teachers and students alike. Please see me in the library if you have questions on using EDpuzzle. Here is a video describing the new integration with EDpuzzle and Google Classroom:
Friday, December 11, 2015
Mind Mapping with MindMup.com
Mind mapping is a quick, fun way to organize thoughts or take notes. Using mind maps can help visual learners "see" concepts and help all students make connections between concepts. Mind maps are thinking tools that help you process and document information or ideas. Mind maps can be used as a pre-writing activity, a quick formative assessment, an assessment of prior knowledge or an exit ticket. It is a great way help students show what they know. Tony Buzan popularized the mind map concept and he claims that students recall much more when using visuals, color and images. Thus, it is good practice to show students how to use a few features before setting them off to mind map.
I chose to show Mind Mup because it is integrated nicely with Google Drive so students can save their mind maps right to their drive and share with student collaborators and teachers easily within their mind map. See my tutorial for Mind Mup below along with another video giving ideas for mind mapping for studying and research.
Diigo is a great tool for organizing research online without ever needing to print. When paired with the Diigo extension, you can highlight and place sticky notes on any document or webpage. Watch the videos below for step by step instructions for setting up your Diigo for Education accounts. Happy Researching!
Video #1: Getting Started with Diigo
Video #2: Installing and Using the Diigo Extension
Video #3: Setting up Diigo for Education Accounts
(an unlisted video- only accessible through these links)
Friday, November 20, 2015
Increase student engagement in watching videos
Edpuzzle gives teachers a great set of tools to customize videos for their classes including the ability to crop videos, create voice-overs, and (my favorite) create questions for students to answer as they watch the video. Edpuzzle allows teachers to import their own videos or use videos from sources such as Ted Talks and YouTube. Using Edpuzzle ensures that all students respond to formative questions (open-ended or multiple choice), not just the few students that might participate in class discussion, so it increases accountability and engagement.
Teachers can see data from the formative questions and video completion for the whole class and also broken down for each student. This data can then be used to guide further instruction. Some teachers use Edpuzzle in the flipped classroom model where students watch an interactive content lesson in Edpuzzle outside of class, and then use class time to engage in activities that apply what was learned. Below is a video I created about Edpuzzle.
We in the library would love to help you get set up with Edpuzzle or give you more information!
